


how my story starts

by toddykun



Series: Sapphic September 2018 [17]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, BAMF Bentina Beakley, Childbirth, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Falling In Love, Forced Marriage, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Knight Bentina Beakley, Marriage of Convenience, Mental Health Issues, Queen M'ma Cabrera, Recovery, Sapphic September, Sapphic September 2018, THEY ARE HAPPY AT THE END PPL EVEN IF THOSE TAGS MAKE IT LOOK LIKE IT COULDNT, its less explicit that it looks like too, like maybe in canon hes good but i just ????, my brain: make him an asshole. me: sounds good, why do i make it look like mr crackshell was an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 22:31:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16072688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toddykun/pseuds/toddykun
Summary: Sometimes, she would catch Fenton looking outside longingly, like she did so many years ago. Looking like he wanted to save the world. Bentina held her hand and she felt powerful and safe.So, she took his hand. And told him about a foreign girl with a beautiful family that became queen.sapphic september 2018:18. (political!au orroyalty!au)





	how my story starts

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, this is my darkest fic yet. i mean, it ends well, even when mamá cabrera passes through some hard shit and is pretty upsetting, it end wells for her. but i can understand that ppl wont wanna read cuz it has some hard stuff there. pls dont force urself to read this if you have some kind of history with those themes, i never do something too explicit but it can be triggering in some cases still, i guess!!! SECOND OF ALL. this story is little stand alone story for a future project i have fentonald!centric that has some beauty and the beast elements!!!! that story its going to be less dark, IT SHOULD BE LESS DARK. but this story is in-universe for that project soooo. third, this story took a toll on me emotionally, so im going to have a looooong nap and hope to write mindless fluff to end my suffering later.
> 
> anyways, i hope u enjoy!!!!!! or dont want to kill me in the end i guess.......

Gloria Crackshell-Cabrera was, for lack of a better word, miserable. More than a princess, she was a sexual and beautiful object for the prince to manipulate and turn around whenever he wanted, to show to people in palace how he “transformed” uneducated, farmer teenager Gloria Cabrera into the graceful, royal woman Gloria Crackshell. Gloria could not say a word in return, could not say no to any desire of her spouse, nor could she read as they teach her in palace nor work like her parents teach her in the farm.

In doing so she knew she would not only codon herself, but her family too.

They were already kind of condoned by the town anyway, with her being out of the age of marriage, a simple farmer and even a foreign to the kingdom.

After all, it was not every day that the royal family came to town to reunite every girl in the age of marriage to meet the prince who was already looking for a spouse. It was not every day that the prince chose a simple foreign farm girl that had already passed the ideal age of marriage _. It was not every day that the prince promised that he would protect her family with the condition of them staying in town and her not having any other contact with them since the day she moved to the palace._

It was not every day that your so-called free life was snatched like it was nothing out of your hands, without you even noticing it.

At first, it had not been that bad, honestly. The prince was actually patient, lovely, charming, he swept Gloria out of her feet in an instant, not giving her enough time to think that the conditions given to her sounded really weird. She liked him so much that she ended making herself a little more innocent and gullible that she actually was, she made herself fragile just to see the aura of satisfaction that the prince would carry when he teach her or saved her. _It never occurred to her that she was feeding a monster, one that didn’t choose a farm girl out of the goodness of his heart but because the one in the top can control the one in the bottom so easily and that made him even stronger._

It didn’t occur to her that this man didn’t want a wife, he wanted a slave and an adorer he could control easily.

And for a while, she was. He made her felt guilty when she wasn’t. Like she was ungrateful of the life he had given her or _how is a simple farm girl going to know what its best for her?_ Or is this how you repay me for protecting your family in town?

So, she let him do as he pleased. She really didn’t know better, and she was too numb to it all at this point.

One day, the maids were gossiping about the foreign farmers of the town. Gloria stopped in her tracks to hear them. They were saying how they started to die out of hunger and the remained part of the family decided to go back where they came from. One of them thanked God for these foreigners for doing that so they could stop with their shady businesses in their town. One of them asked if they weren’t the family of the prince’s wife. She heard a lot of gasps when she got out of her hiding spot and said yes to them. They scattered like rats. Gloria cried silently that night, besides the naked body of her husband.

Gloria wanted to disappear with her family out of this stupid town. Her husband found her looking at the gates of the castle longingly. She wished she could kill him.

When she was with him sometimes she felt in a mist, but now she was lost in a labyrinth and the mist in there was so dense that she couldn’t see a thing not even at arm’s length. She was too confused to even think about what was happening. Until one day there was this little light in the way, so little but so hopeful. For that light, for Gloria, came with a lot of realizations.

Princess Gloria Crackshell-Cabrera was expecting.

A duckling that was hers and his.

The entire kingdom entered a frenzy and exciting celebration. The king, especially, was ridiculously overjoyed by the news.

Her husband, well, not so much. She didn’t know why. She didn’t give a single fuck either. This was her duckling.

She was going to have a child. Oh, how much she wanted to tell her parents (but the request was denied like almost every request she had made before, this time, it was denied by the way of life. One couldn’t tell shit to the dead.).

The king dotted in Gloria as he had never done before. He put at her disposition everything she could want for her pregnancy, the silkiest and softest blankest, the bigger room of all the castle and a lot of maids that could assist her in the nesting if she wanted to indulge in it (it was not really necessary these days but there were still some pregnant ducks that were called by instinct to do so), a doctor that always checked on her (she was a farmer, strong body, less risk on the day of laying the egg or eggs), he told her she could do to her body as she pleased, no more corsets? She could do it, other dresses? That too. The king spoiled Gloria rotten for that time.

Gloria was not that nervous for the pregnancy. Well, she was. _After all, she could die the day she laid the egg or eggs_. But she herself had assisted some laying eggs in town and in her own home with her mother, sisters, and aunts, she knew all the process. She knew what to do and what not to do, even in her “ignorant state” as a farmer, she had a lot of knowledge on the matter. He said it was okay but he wanted to be sure.

He even put an especial guardian to care for Gloria at all times, in the case of a misfortune emergency.

She was an experienced knight, fully trained and with the body and the soul of a complete army in just one place. Bentina Beakley, Personal Protector of Princess Gloria Crackshell.

Again, her husband did not like this at all.

Bentina converted herself in her confident, her best friend and maybe something more that she could not place at the moment. The woman never,  _never_ left her alone and for a moment she thought it was going to be uncomfortable with her husband. But impressively, she felt safer and more herself with Bentina in the room. Probably because the prince could not harm her when Bentina was there. He tried one time, _Bentina almost killed him with just one stare_. He was too scared after that to even get too close to her (especially because he didn’t have the power to discard Bentina, who was the most appreciated knight in his father’s court). He would still use some micro-aggressions but they flew over Gloria’s head, who was now too busy staring at the reliable back of her knight at all times to really care about her real spouse.

The months and days passed, and before one would know it, Gloria started the contractions.

The day that she laid Fenton’s egg was one that she would never forget and, unfortunately, it was not because it was the day she laid the egg nor was it because a better thing happened that day.

She was in the bed, sweating, pain out of her mind, her whole body contracting over and over. Two midwives at her call, assisting her, reminding her to breathe, to push, to give her all. One of them asked if she maybe wanted her husband there. After all, now it was permitted for the spouse to be present in these acts. She remembered the vicious look her husband would send to her pregnant body, an ominous presence that her instinct said could have terrible intentions. She reacted before she could think about it, her eyes wide open, terrified out of her mind, a scream got out of her so loud that scratched her throat painfully. A sharp “NO” that almost made her midwifes jump out of their skin. They nodded and continued the assistance as nothing had happened. But now, Gloria didn’t want to be alone with two strangers.

She asked for her mother. Her midwives said they couldn’t do that. She wanted her sisters, her aunts, her cousins. Her midwives, again, said no. She wanted at least one of her friends in town. Again a no.

She wanted a friend, somebody she trusted. She wanted…

“I want-.” She interrupted herself with a sudden breath and started again. “I want Bentina! Please, bring her here!”

“Princess, we can’t do that!”

“I. WANT. HER. HERE. NOW.” She punched the mattress with all her force, in case they didn’t get the point across by just her screams and her angered face.

“Y-yes, princess, immediately!”

One of the midwifes get out of the room almost running. Gloria grabbed the sheets painfully tight between her fingers while she waited. She kept pushing and breathing, the only midwife in the room softly guiding her.

Bentina entered the room fifteen minutes later like a calm wave in the ocean. Gloria cried for her immediately, her hand extending, looking for her support. The bigger woman sat down right beside her on the bed, gripping her hand tightly. “I’m here, princess. I’ll not abandon you.”

Gloria felt immediately safer, completely secure.

It was a painful and slow process. It was apparently a big egg so it took more time that it usually did. Gloria prayed that it was the only one egg she would have in her entire life because she was not sure if she could survive another one like that. She knew it was finally out when her body slumped into the mattress, the midwifes gasping excitedly and Bentina smiling at her, proudly. They presented her the egg. It was enormous, ridiculously so. Gloria laughed at the size of the egg, at the pain, at the time that it was now since she had the first contractions, too happy to contain her tears, she took her egg into her arms with the little strength she had left.

The midwifes got out of the room, saying they would give her space and to inform the king and the prince about the successful laying of the egg. Bentina asked if she wanted her to remain there. The instinct of being alone with her egg to protect it got the best of her and asked Bentina to leave for the time being, she would call her when she needed her. Bentina just smiled and against all odds, she kissed her hand. Gloria was too tired to really react. But she kept thinking about the kiss even when Bentina got out of the room.

She held her egg with carefulness and protectiveness, sighing, content in that moment of time and space. Everything was good for at least five minutes. It was good, until her husband entered the room without permission or warning. Her instincts immediately started to put on her alarms, her heart went on a race, she felt violated out of nowhere. A duck she hadn’t allow was in her nest. She did not like it.

“Let me see my son.”

It was not a question nor a hesitant request.

It was a demand.

“You don’t know if it’s a boy,” she said, sat up so she could see him better, so she could respond to his movements if necessary.

_Why was he with a sword?_

“Please, like I would have something less than a man.” He said it with a sardonic smile, he was laughing at her. _Something, he said. Less than a man, he said._

Gloria felt hot all over, like a volcano at eruption point. She felt herself wanting to jump at him and thorn his throat apart with her own hands. Instincts were taking over. She probably looked insane in her current ways.

Hair in all directions, black circles under her eyes, bared teeth, angered face, red eyes, disheveled state.

This man had done enough to her. He was not touching her egg.

“No.”

“What?”

“I said-” and she put the egg right behind her, hiding it form him- “NO.”

“Useless bitch!” Her husband got out his sword and with an outrageous cry, he impaled the border of the bed. Gloria screamed scared, taking her egg into her arms and stepping back as much as she could, her back lined up at the headboard of the bed, putting as much distance as she could. She was now completely and undoubtly terrified. “I wanted to spare you at least, but well, let’s kill you along with your precious egg!”

In that precise moment, where her body was too tired to move even just a little, where her body felt paralyzed for the terror, there was only one thought in her mind, her pained body moving immediately with it.

_Protect your child._

Gloria would swear that the moment the prince jumped at her with his sword, with a vicious smile while she sprawled herself protectively over the egg were the most painfully slow seconds of her entire life. Not even laying the egg had been that painful or slow. The bed moved with her husband weight on it, the smell of sweat and blood filled the room, her mouth hurt for her teeth grinding too hard.

She closed her eyes, expecting the worst.

She never thought that the clinks of two swords meeting would make her feel safe but it did.

Gloria turned around to see Bentina, and she could swear to God that she had never seen her so atrociously _mad_. She looked ready to kill him at that exact moment given the sightless of chances. And even then, there, where Bentina towered over her tiny husband who definitely couldn’t give Bentina a run for her money, there where she looked murderous, there Gloria felt like she could finally breathe again. Bentina looked at her and Gloria felt like smiling even when her heart was going at 200 and placed in her throat and her hands sweated so much and the panic was tingling in her skin like electricity.

A realization hit her like a cannon in that moment, her brain processing everything at super speed: _He is jealous of the egg, of the duckling, that would receive all of the king’s attention now. That would be a better prospect to take the crown than him if it’s was a boy. He wanted to kill my child. My child._

“Your father would not be pleased to hear of all of this.” Bentina didn’t sound like she was thinking about the king at all.

He tsked, annoyed, like he have the right to. “I thought you would be long gone by this moment, I guess I was wrong.” Bentina furrowed her brows further, he now looked at Gloria directly. “I was expecting that choosing a girl out of her age of marriage would make easier the theme of the pregnancy. But I guess you aren’t useful even for that.” He laughed, Gloria wanted to throw up.

Bentina took a step forward, forcing the prince to take one back. They stared at each other angrily, their swords still together. “I will ask you _gently_ to leave the room. Because at this point I don’t care about going to the gallows if it is mean that you are dead, Prince Crackshell.”

Her husband seemed to react to that. He took a step back on his own, finally.

“I detest you.”

“The sentiment is shared, Prince.”

“Let’s have a compromise.”

This time, Gloria talked, her voice little and soft. “A compromise?”

Bentina walked until she was at her side completely, sword in front of her, protecting her. “Don’t you think you have done enough to her?”

He ignored her. “I will be king, there’s no other way. If you assure me that your kid is not going to be in the way of that, then I leave you all alone. We can both live in the castle, no talking to each other, no seeing each other, I won’t even come closer to your…thing.”

“Thing?” Bentina repeated, not entirely sure about what was he referring to. Gloria didn’t know either.

“I’m not stupid, Mrs. Beakley. I know exactly how beautiful my wife is, your eyes wander her like the first time I saw her.” Bentina stilled, tension entering her veins in an instant. “I guess I can understand all that aggressiveness if you want me out of the picture. I just want you three out of _my_ picture too.”

“I would ne-!”

“We’ll do it.”

“Wait, Gloria, no! He is trying to manipulate us.”

“Yeah, but we both have shit to thrown against each other. I have a destroyed bed and a personal guard that can testify, also a loving king that is nurturing towards his unhatched grandchild. If we told the king his son tried to kill me, he would believe us and he knows it, don’t you? _Husband_.”

“My, did I fetch a smart wife?”

“Yes, you did. You also could tell the king that Bentina prepared all of this out of her love for me, the king would also believe you _because he knows too_ and also because he loves his ungrateful piece of shit son. That’s what you have against me.”

“So? You are just saying what we both know out there.”

“Just wanted to put Bentina into perspective.”

“The compromise?”

Gloria nodded. “Don’t touch me or my duckling ever again. Don’t go near Bentina either, she’s mine.”

Her husband looked at Bentina, grinding her teeth and looking at him like she wanted to impale him right there, there was blush right there too but she wasn’t so sure, her brain was too occupied with her husband, then he looked at her again. “I wouldn’t dare.”

He got out of the room, and Gloria thought she would feel better, but her chest was still tight and her legs still trembling, she gulped and closed her eyes. She cried silently, Bentina hugging her.

She didn’t know if she felt relieved or downright played with.

To that night and forward, nightmares haunted her. Sometimes the egg just couldn’t make it, it broke before she could laid it, and she died with the egg too in those dreams. Sometimes, the prince would do inexplicably things to her until she was pregnant again and again, with the same results every time, he breaking the egg with his sword. Sometimes it was the cries of a baby, but she could never find wherever it came from. Bentina slept with her now, so she calmed her when she waked up, screaming and crying, running to see how her egg was doing. Sometimes, she didn’t sleep at all or she didn’t wanted to see the egg at all because she would remember her husband’s face and throw up. Then she would say sorry, apologizing like a crazy to the egg because it wasn’t his fault. Bentina sometimes needed to feed her, Gloria too exhausted to do something about it. The king reassure her that it was okay to feel like that. People suffered of a lot of things these days, from their minds to their bodies. If only the oblivious king knew why exactly she felt like that.

It was a whole month of that, until the egg started to break and Gloria’s heart grow three sizes in an instant just by that fact. The one that actually saw it first, was Bentina’s daughter, who lived in the castle now with them. She screamed up and down to the two women asleep on the bed until they woke up and asked what was happening. They got up instantly when the girl told what she saw and called the king, they called the prince too, out of politeness. He went but maintained his distance, like he promised he would do.

When Fenton’s hatched, Gloria laughed with happy tears down her face when she saw the tiniest, cutest and clumsiest duckling get out of that big egg.

The king gasped surprised but took the baby boy into his arms anyways, with the permission of his mother, of course. Bentina caressed her back, Gloria just sighed, taking her hand into hers discretely. Bentina’s daughter jumped up and down, happily at the baby duck who cried at some point for his mamá. Gloria took him into her chest immediately. The king cooed at the little duckling, he was definitely enamored.

The prince looked at the scene with distaste. It was a boy, after all. The risk of his son gaining the crown before him when up.

She didn’t give a single fuck. _Serves you right, asshole_ , she thought, pleased at herself.

Fenton was an incredible happy duckling, too enthusiastic, too curious. He asked about absolutely everything that went across him. Gloria couldn’t keep up, not even his teachers. He played with stuff he found in the darnest of places and created a lot of things, some of them worked, some of them didn’t work at all, _some of them exploded._ He liked to play with Bentina’s daughter who was ten years older than him, he called her sister, and she held his hands to do even the simplest of things. He made friends with the son of one of the alchemist of the palace, a cockerel called Gyro Gearloose that invented things too with the power of science or so he claimed, and with the daughter of one of the maids, a white parakeet called Gandra Dee that knew a little too much about machines for a little girl. One day, Gyro found a dog, Fenton fell in love, Gloria couldn’t say no, the king liked pets, her husband say nothing, Bentina claimed it was a great responsibility but overall couldn’t say no. He called the little thing Gizmo, no idea where he got the name from.

Fenton grow up to be quite the weird but charming teenager. Handsome as she was, he looked like his father too, there was no way around that matter. Gloria was still pretty proud. _I gave birth to that_ , she thought, giggling to herself while looking at Fenton running his beak off about something to a working Gyro and a fascinated Gandra. Bentina looked at her with a brow up, Gloria dismissed it. After all that happened, she was happy.

Fenton never really talked to his biological father, not even when he knew it was him. In Fenton’s mind, there were two faces that he recognized as his parents subconsciously. None of them were masculine. His family were his mom, Bentina, Bentina’s daughter as his sister, Gyro, Gandra, his granddad, and Gizmo. He was very happy with that. Gloria wished he knew about his abuelos, his aunts and uncles, his cousins from her side. _One day_ , she promised to herself.

But one day, out of nowhere, the king was dead. One day, out of nowhere, her husband was the king and she, the queen. A year later, _not out of nowhere_ , her husband died and she became the queen.

The council actually wanted Fenton to have his rightful place as king but Gloria thought: _he is a child, they are not going to overwhelm him with this until he actually knows how to reign._ So, she put her foot down, held her head high and spoke in the most commanding voice she could muster when they tried to negate her.

“ _I AM_ _the queen and HIS mother. This is MY decision_.”

They looked terrified by those simple words. She decided that she had succeeded. It could have helped that Bentina was right at her side too, intimidating presence even when she didn’t try it to be. Oh, and Drake Mallard, Bentina’s apprentice, he was short but kind of scary too. But she wanted a little credit for herself, so she did well. The important point was that it worked just fine.

She was now Queen Gloria Cabrera. No Crackshell. No princess.

Everything felt into place, eventually.

Sometimes, she would catch Fenton looking outside longingly, like she did so many years ago. Looking like he wanted to save the world. Bentina held her hand and she felt powerful and safe.

So, she took his hand. And told him about a foreign girl with a beautiful family that became queen.

**Author's Note:**

> first, I made like three hours of research about medieval childbirth and nesting and hatching and laying an egg of ducks, that shit exhausting, poor women wtf and like the mallard duck lays like in average from 8 to 14 eggs WtFFFF and they lay like one per day, holy shit???? POOR THINGS
> 
> second, I always thought Gandra was a parakeet??? But apparently, she is just a bird or at least that’s how the wikis described her. Damn, I had lived a headcanon about her all my life???
> 
> third, again, this story is a stand-alone for my future project of "A Tale of Two Castles", is going to be a multi-chaptered, alternate universe of medieval royal fantasy with a lot of beauty and the beast elements that centers on the story of two royal families that live in just a kingdom and have political issues and shit, mamá Cabrera, Fenton and Donald are the actual protagonists of that story! i have the outline already, i just need to polish it and start working on it so look forward to that.
> 
> fourth, I'm going to start college this monday, like, u know, tomorrow!!!! so that sucks in the matter of writing cuz no time but im going to try my all and not abandon this.
> 
> HOPE U ENJOYED THE FIC!!!!!
> 
> come bother me if u want to:  
> [my writing and art tumblr](http://toddy-does.tumblr.com/)  
> [my personal tumblr](http://toddy-kun.tumblr.com/)  
> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/toddywithcereal)


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